The game on the nomination of the next president of the Eurogroup is completely open. The deadline for submitting applications will end this weekend and next Monday afternoon, 4 December, the finance ministers will meet in Brussels to decide. Meanwhile, contacts between the capitals of the Eurozone are in full swing to verify the possible consensus around this or that name.
Ministers on track, even without being formally nominated, can be counted on one hand: the Minister of Economy Pier Carlo Padoan it has excellent credentials and the explicit support of France with the statements made by Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and the imprimatur received from Eurocommissioner Moscovici. However Padoan is not the only one competing for this important position: he will have to contend above all with the Portuguese Mario centeno while the candidacies of the Austrian remain in the background Joerg Schelling, the Luxembourgish Pierre Gramegna. Berlin would sponsor the Latvian minister Dana Reisniece-Ozola, business expert and former chess champion.
Complicated choice: on the one hand, the socialist party is claiming its place given that the three highest EU offices are covered by members of the popular party; on the other hand, the Padoan hypothesis clashes with the fact that the president of the ECB (Draghi) and the president of the European Parliament (Tajani) are Italian. Furthermore, his tenure in government after the spring elections is totally uncertain. Someone whispers that the choice could be postponed, also due to the absence of the new German government. But the first not to want the continuation of a temporary mandate to the Dutchman Jeroen Dijsselbloem is the Dutch government: Disselbloem is a former minister of the Labor Party who was defeated in the recent elections. Applications must be submitted by Thursday while the final decision will arrive next Monday.
